Episode 93: The Pilgrim's Progress

You all demanded it, so we delivered! Delivered you from evil. Today we have The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) otherwise known as John Bunyan’s Excellent Ambien Adventure. It’s about his dream of a Christian named Christian who sets off on a little journey to the Celestial City where the grass is green and the girls are into religious allegory. We follow our hero with his backpack full of sin as he meets wingmen like Faithful who is full of faith, a guy named Help who helps him, and a woman named Lust of the Flesh whom we should not have to explain any more about. You get it. Do we find salvation? Does Christian make it to Mount Zion? Is it a good idea to do mixed martial arts with a fish monster who wears bears as shoes? We answer all these questions and talk about genre, allegory, interpretation, and some Puritans who buckled their hats too tight.

We read the Norton edition, with notes and introduction by Cynthia Wall. If you still can’t get enough of Pilgrim’s Progress, we highly recommend Gregory S. Jackson’s article “A Game Theory of Evangelical Fiction” (yes there is a Pilgrim’s Progress board game and yes there are pictures included) and David M. Diamond’s “Sinners and ‘Standers By’: Reading the Characters of Calvinism in The Pilgrim’s Progress.” And check out our Joseph Andrews episode, which David guest hosted!

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